Description:The earliest buildings at the Soho Manufactory were devoted to making of Birmingham ‘toys’ including buttons, buckles, chapes (part of a buckle), sword hilts and all manner of personal adornment made from metal. They were in fact an extension to Matthew Boulton’s existing business based at Snow Hill, Birmingham, but with two main differences: an unprecedented large scale operations and the availability of water power to speed up some of these processes, such as polishing.
He also entered into partnership with John Fothergill to help develop foreign markets. The rebuilding of the infant water mill at Soho was the first priority (completed in the summer of 1762). It was to be located within the largest of two courtyards, and built against a tall bank that provided the head of water for the water wheel. Ranged around the two ‘quadrangles’, were buildings of little or no architectural pretension: the workshops, a warehouse and a terrace of houses. The latter stretched across both yards on the west side and faced outwards to the Hockley Brook.
Boulton’s decision only a few years later to build a grand silver plate works in 1765-7 completely changed the appearance of the Manufactory. Designed by William Wyatt, the ‘principal building’, as it was known, was built on the top of the bank overlooking the existing buildings. Boulton would have been pleased to have his building likened to ‘the stately palace of some Duke.’ Consequently it dominates most of the contemporary views of the Manufactory so that the earlier ‘toy’ or button works at the lower level are mostly hidden. The ‘principal building’ not only housed the silver plate works, mostly in workshops at the rear and overlooking a new yard, but also showrooms, warehouses and extra accommodation in the end wings for senior workers.
After John Fothergill left the partnership in 1782, Boulton split the business into a plate company and a button company. These continued to occupy roughly the same buildings as previously, but the making of buttons declined significantly over the next few decades.
Any further building at the main Manufactory complex after 1775 tended to be for the newer steam engine and letter-copy businesses, where the greater profits were ultimately to be made.